An exhibition produced by the Centre Pompidou, Paris
Photographie, arme de classe is a fascinating synthesis of a little-known moment in the history of photography in the French-speaking world in the 1930s, too exclusively identified with the "humanist" photography of Robert Doisneau, Isis or Willy Ronis.
It brings together the unpublished works of immense artists - then very young - such as Jacques-André Boiffard, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Gisèle Freund, Germaine Krull, Eli Lotar, Lisette Model or René Zuber, as well as anonymous photographers.
Engaged in the anti-fascist struggle, social revolution and pacifism, the professionals of the Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists (AEAR) and the Amateur Photographers Workers (APO) use photography as a weapon to document and denounce social realities in France, Belgium, Switzerland and the world. From these new practices is born a visual and graphic grammar at the service of the political fight carried by a formidable dynamic of magazines, brochures, leaflets, posters...
A part of the exhibition will be devoted to the French-speaking part of Switzerland and in particular to the events of 9 November 1932 in Geneva.